Text Search:

Text Options:

First Day
-
Novel IX

[Voice:
elissa
]

[
001
]
The censure of a Gascon lady converts the King of
Cyprus from a churlish to an honourable temper.

[Voice:
author
]

[
002
]
Except Elisa none now remained to answer the call of the
queen, and she without waiting for it, with gladsome alacrity thus
began:

[Voice:
elissa
]

[
003
]
Bethink you, damsels, how often it has happened that men who
have been obdurate to censures and chastisements have been reclaimed
by some unpremeditated casual word. This is plainly manifest
by the story told by Lauretta; and by mine, which will be of the
briefest, I mean further to illustrate it; seeing that, good stories,
being always pleasurable, are worth listening to with attention, no
matter by whom they may be told.

[Voice:
elissa
]

[
004
]
'Twas, then, in the time of the first king of Cyprus, after the
conquest made of the Holy Land by Godfrey de Bouillon, that a
lady of Gascony made a pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre, and on
her way home, having landed at Cyprus, met with brutal outrage
at the hands of certain ruffians. [
005
]
Broken-hearted and disconsolate
she determined to make her complaint to the king; but she was told
that it would be all in vain, because so spiritless and
fainèant
was he that he not only neglected to avenge affronts put upon others, but
endured with a reprehensible tameness those which were offered
to himself, insomuch that whoso had any ill-humour to vent, took
occasion to vex or mortify him. [
006
]
The lady, hearing this report,
despaired of redress, and by way of alleviation of her grief determined
to make the king sensible of his baseness. So in tears she presented
herself before him and said:
“
Sire, it is not to seek redress of the
wrong done me that I come here before you: but only that, so please
you, I may learn of you how it is that you suffer patiently the wrongs
which, as I understand, are done you; that thus schooled by you in
patience I may endure my own, which, God knows, I would gladly,
were it possible, transfer to you, seeing that you are so well fitted to
bear them.
”
[
007
]
These words aroused the hitherto sluggish and apathetic
king as it were from sleep. He redressed the lady's wrong, and having
thus made a beginning, thenceforth meted out the most rigorous
justice to all that in any wise offended against the majesty of his
crown.